Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #474 The Art of Insubordination With Todd Kashdan

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#474 The Art of Insubordination With Todd Kashdan · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.
0:10
Speaker 2: Now, that's what courage looks like. It's an authentic stamp
0:13
Speaker 2: of how he's living his life. And there's something really
0:17
Speaker 2: beautiful about completely relentless desires and passions that you're willing
0:24
Speaker 2: to pursue despite the public stay.
0:27
Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mom
0:30
Speaker 1: and Dad.
0:31
Speaker 3: Gooday. This is doctor Justin Colson, the author of six
0:32
Speaker 3: books about making you family Happier, the parenting expert on
0:35
Speaker 3: Channel nine's Parental Guidance. And every now and again, I
0:39
Speaker 3: don't know how to say this and not sound like
0:42
Speaker 3: I'm gushing or being silly about it, but every now
0:43
Speaker 3: and again on this podcast, I get to talk to
0:45
Speaker 3: somebody who I am so dead set stoked to talk to.
0:49
Speaker 3: And today is one of those days. Professor Todd Kashton
0:54
Speaker 3: is a psychology I'm just going to say, a psychology guru.
0:58
Speaker 1: This.
0:58
Speaker 3: I've been interacting with Todd via email and reading his
1:02
Speaker 3: books and looking at his science for like the last
1:04
Speaker 3: fifteen or twenty years. He's a professor of psychology at
1:07
Speaker 3: George Mason University and a dad to three Daughters, which
1:11
Speaker 3: is very, very important for our conversation today. He's the
1:13
Speaker 3: author of a whole bunch of books and probably one
1:15
Speaker 3: of my favorite researchers on the planet. And Todd has
1:18
Speaker 3: recently written a book called The Art of Insubordination. This
1:22
Speaker 3: is going to be one of my top three books. Probably,
1:25
Speaker 3: it's absolutely going to be my top books of twenty
1:28
Speaker 3: twenty two. I read this book with nervous anticipation. I
1:33
Speaker 3: wanted it to be good, but books on this topic
1:35
Speaker 3: traditionally haven't excited me, and this I was just blown away.
1:39
Speaker 3: I was so excited about it. So today I'm having
1:41
Speaker 3: a conversation with, like I said, one of my favorite
1:44
Speaker 3: researchers on the planet, Professor Todd Cashton. Welcome to The
1:48
Speaker 3: Happy Family's podcast, and thanks for taking time out to
1:50
Speaker 3: be with me to.
1:51
Speaker 2: Finally talk after ten years of interacting by snail mail
1:55
Speaker 2: and passenger pigeons.
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Speaker 3: Hey yeah, Todd, probably talk for hours about all of this.
2:02
Speaker 3: But because of our history and the million questions that
2:05
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, and I want everyone to
2:07
Speaker 3: know you in the way that I've come to know
2:09
Speaker 3: you over the last however long it's been. But I
2:12
Speaker 3: really think that we should stick to the book because
2:15
Speaker 3: it's going to give people a snapshot of the kind
2:16
Speaker 3: of person that you are. I'm going to say that
2:18
Speaker 3: you're a principled rebel. You're the kind of person who
2:22
Speaker 3: doesn't just follow the standard line. But there are really
2:27
Speaker 3: good reasons that you don't, but you do when you
2:28
Speaker 3: need to because it makes sense. And the book is
2:32
Speaker 3: kind of about getting this right, the art of insubordination.
2:35
Speaker 3: I read it, Like I said, I totally loved it.
2:38
Speaker 3: As a population and particularly as parents, we've got a
2:42
Speaker 3: challenging relationship with the concept of insubordination. Like when we
2:49
Speaker 3: talk about it, we're like, yeah, yeah, I want my
2:51
Speaker 3: kids to think for themselves. I want them to be independent.
2:53
Speaker 3: I want them to I want them to not be
2:56
Speaker 3: swayed by the crowd. And yet when they start to
3:00
Speaker 3: think for themselves, when I start to become independent, particularly
3:03
Speaker 3: in our living room or kitchen or their bedroom, as parents,
3:06
Speaker 3: we don't respond particularly well to they're insubordination.
3:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, even more than that, I mean, we want people
3:11
Speaker 2: to be independent from the crowd. At the same time,
3:15
Speaker 2: as parents, we are so concerned when our kid is
3:18
Speaker 2: not accepted by the crowd and it's not spending time
3:21
Speaker 2: with those kids that are at the top of these
3:24
Speaker 2: arbitrary social hierarchies that exist everywhere. And we have to
3:28
Speaker 2: first acknowledge reality as it is, which is all of
3:32
Speaker 2: life is a middle school playground, where in terms of
3:36
Speaker 2: there are kids who are more socially attractive than others
3:39
Speaker 2: viewed from other kids, whether it's physical attractiveness, intelligence, wit, kindness, humor,
3:46
Speaker 2: you know, athletic skills, just physical size and fortitude. And
3:50
Speaker 2: then there are kids at the bottom. And while we
3:53
Speaker 2: want kids to be independent, critical thinkers, we also want
3:56
Speaker 2: them to fit in. And you're at the crux. We're
3:59
Speaker 2: immediately at a parentadox of how do we accept our
4:03
Speaker 2: kid dealing with the complexity of being socially popular and
4:09
Speaker 2: independent of what the herd is going to say?
4:11
Speaker 3: And how do we do that? I mean, that's the
4:13
Speaker 3: purpose of this conversation, right, how do we how do
4:16
Speaker 3: we do that? In relation to I want them to
4:20
Speaker 3: be I want them to be popular. I want the
4:22
Speaker 3: well not even popular. I want them to have good relationships.
4:25
Speaker 3: And yet as soon as they're in a relationship in
4:29
Speaker 3: a school context, there's potential for things to go wrong.
4:31
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like I'm answering my own question.
4:33
Speaker 3: I feel like we've got to teach them values, right,
4:36
Speaker 3: but those values, they can get so rigid around those
4:39
Speaker 3: values that they can't make friends because of that.
4:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean it starts with language. You're right,
4:45
Speaker 2: popularity is and what we're looking for, we're really looking of.
4:47
Speaker 2: We want our youth to be compelling. And to what's
4:51
Speaker 2: compelling you can break it into an equation, right, compelling
4:54
Speaker 2: is you have likability plus competence, and to some degree,
5:00
Speaker 2: as parents and as teachers and society pretend to put
5:05
Speaker 2: the extra emphasis on the confidence part. So I want
5:08
Speaker 2: you to be intellectual. I want you to be able
5:11
Speaker 2: to understand World War one or World War two. I
5:14
Speaker 2: want you to be aware of, you know, racial dynamics
5:17
Speaker 2: from you know, from sixteen nineteen onward. I want you
5:20
Speaker 2: to be understanding of you know, who, you know, which
5:24
Speaker 2: which groups subjugated, which groups in which country, and be
5:28
Speaker 2: aware of this. I want you to be athletic. I
5:30
Speaker 2: want you to be able to do ten pushups and
5:32
Speaker 2: ten setups. I want you to be able to run
5:35
Speaker 2: up a flight of stairs and not be winded. I
5:36
Speaker 2: want you to be able to be physically agile enough
5:39
Speaker 2: so that if you fell with the spill in Aisle
5:41
Speaker 2: five in a grocery store, you could get back up
5:44
Speaker 2: and you wouldn't be paralyzed because you've worked out your body.
5:47
Speaker 2: That's the competence part, and society puts a lot of emphasis.
5:50
Speaker 2: But we also have the liability part, which is not
5:53
Speaker 2: necessarily being nice, kind of compassion all the time. But
5:57
Speaker 2: people want to be around you, and when you're when
6:00
Speaker 2: people are around you, they're energized, they're charged up. The
6:03
Speaker 2: best parts of the personality come out. You put these
6:06
Speaker 2: two pieces together, it's about a compelling person. And so
6:10
Speaker 2: I think just starrying there with clearly defining exactly the
6:17
Speaker 2: parameters of what we're looking for, and then we can
6:19
Speaker 2: start to build out. We can talk about kind of
6:21
Speaker 2: the strategies to get likability and the strategies to get confident.
6:25
Speaker 3: I love this. And if we tie back into my
6:27
Speaker 3: previous comment about values, this is where we start to
6:29
Speaker 3: get the clash right, because you might have a reasonably
6:31
Speaker 3: competent child who is likable, except that they've got a
6:34
Speaker 3: particular value that's not very likable. I'm going to give
6:37
Speaker 3: you a concrete example, and I know that this one
6:40
Speaker 3: is going to clash a little bit with your values. So, well,
6:42
Speaker 3: this is a G rated no swearing podcast. You like
6:48
Speaker 3: course language, you like a swear word out now and then,
6:50
Speaker 3: and I'm a non swearer, which is so funny. You
6:53
Speaker 3: and I were actually very different, but we're also wonderfully
6:56
Speaker 3: aligned in so many ways. So we've taught our kids that, well,
7:00
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't use course language, we don't swear.
7:03
Speaker 3: And so what they've done is they've internalized that swearing
7:06
Speaker 3: is bad, and we've now got to try to teach
7:09
Speaker 3: them just because somebody does swear doesn't make them a
7:12
Speaker 3: bad person, but because kids, especially when they're young, right,
7:15
Speaker 3: they're so concrete in their thinking. When the kids all
7:19
Speaker 3: start using course language at school and they start dropping
7:22
Speaker 3: f bombs around the place from let's say grade four,
7:25
Speaker 3: grade five, something like that, and the kids really start
7:27
Speaker 3: to let this stuff out, our kids begin to We've
7:31
Speaker 3: watched this happen with all of them. They begin to
7:33
Speaker 3: move away from those kids who are using that language.
7:35
Speaker 3: Because while I thought you were my friend, but if
7:37
Speaker 3: you're going to use that language, you can't be my friend.
7:38
Speaker 3: And I've asked you not to because I don't like it,
7:40
Speaker 3: and you're still doing it. You're ignoring what I value,
7:42
Speaker 3: so therefore we can't be friends. And so the likability
7:45
Speaker 3: if we go back to your competence and likability, my
7:47
Speaker 3: kids are competent, but now that there's a values clash
7:52
Speaker 3: around this particular language issue, they've suddenly become less likable
7:57
Speaker 3: in the eyes of their friends who want to be
7:58
Speaker 3: able to swear because they feel often strong and mature
8:01
Speaker 3: because they're using adult language, right, And I wonder if
8:04
Speaker 3: you can just talk about what parents can do. I'm
8:07
Speaker 3: sure that not every parent is dealing with this particular issue,
8:09
Speaker 3: but they will be having those kinds of values clashes.
8:12
Speaker 3: How do you respond to that in relation to this
8:14
Speaker 3: concept of teaching your kids to be likable when that
8:19
Speaker 3: values clash is there.
8:21
Speaker 2: I am so glad you brought up this concrete example
8:24
Speaker 2: because let's play with this, because it offers an avenue
8:27
Speaker 2: to really understand what parents can do. So you captured
8:32
Speaker 2: our differences. But actually, now let me explain how my
8:35
Speaker 2: parents with course language, which I think we're going to
8:39
Speaker 2: be completely on the same page about so my kids.
8:42
Speaker 2: Because I'm from New York City, so I came from
8:44
Speaker 2: a rough and tumble culture. So I'm very comfortable with
8:48
Speaker 2: course language, and my kids are taught that in the
8:52
Speaker 2: household you can use any language you want around me.
8:56
Speaker 2: But people that are creative, now we get back to confidence.
9:01
Speaker 2: People that are creative are able to use more interesting
9:05
Speaker 2: language to describe moments. So when you use describe moments
9:09
Speaker 2: when they would use profanity. So when do you use
9:11
Speaker 2: profanity when you're in pain? So we know for research
9:14
Speaker 2: that if you use profanity when you're in pain, your
9:17
Speaker 2: distressed tolerance, your frustration tolerance, your ability to handle physical
9:22
Speaker 2: disruptions to your body goes up. Now how much you know,
9:25
Speaker 2: who knows, Maybe it's a ten percent bump. We also
9:28
Speaker 2: know it's a wave of endearment. So you can, you know,
9:31
Speaker 2: talk about your friends using profanity, and it's a way
9:34
Speaker 2: to actually to show anger and indignation of someone pisses
9:37
Speaker 2: you off, and you use language. So I trained my
9:40
Speaker 2: kids of listen, anybody can use the you know, the
9:44
Speaker 2: seven dangerous words of bad language that George Carlin talked
9:48
Speaker 2: about in the seventies. But the truly creative ones are
9:52
Speaker 2: the ones that make their own language where people are
9:55
Speaker 2: people are allies and join you in your quest of
9:59
Speaker 2: whatever it is, Bob you if someone upsets you, if
10:02
Speaker 2: you like somebody, people will be like, oh maybe I
10:04
Speaker 2: should like them too, if you can use your own terms.
10:06
Speaker 2: So here are some terms that my kids often use.
10:09
Speaker 2: If I say something ridiculously stupid or one of their friends,
10:12
Speaker 2: do they call me a chicken head or their friends
10:14
Speaker 2: of chicken head. One of my kids, when she was eight, Raven,
10:19
Speaker 2: she's now fifteen, she came up with a term that
10:22
Speaker 2: I still use. As opposed to using a profane word
10:25
Speaker 2: to describe your peeps, she came up with the term brochontcha.
10:29
Speaker 2: Now I use this word all the time. So it
10:34
Speaker 2: is so it's it undercuts any dangerous as you were
10:40
Speaker 2: describing adult language. Look you cool. She is so creative.
10:44
Speaker 2: She comes up with this her own lexicon. It's very
10:47
Speaker 2: clear in context what it is. And so there's a
10:50
Speaker 2: few things that are happening here. So one is I'm
10:53
Speaker 2: training my kids is that creativity is something that's valued
10:57
Speaker 2: in friendship as well as you know, in court, in
11:01
Speaker 2: early romances or whatever it is. And it's also is
11:04
Speaker 2: attractive to adults in that you're showing a level of
11:07
Speaker 2: etiquette and you're showing that you're interesting, and you're showing
11:11
Speaker 2: is that there's more to you than I. There's sort
11:13
Speaker 2: of an intrigue factor where I don't know everything about you.
11:17
Speaker 2: The other part of this is I'm training them to
11:19
Speaker 2: be their own individualized versions of how they're going to
11:24
Speaker 2: use language and how they're going to interact with the
11:27
Speaker 2: rest of the world other than my household. And so
11:30
Speaker 2: I'm giving them a free pass. I'm telling them like, listen,
11:35
Speaker 2: go forth, as I'm going to be your safe haven,
11:39
Speaker 2: which is basically I know when you leave this house,
11:42
Speaker 2: you're going to grow and expand and meet new characters.
11:45
Speaker 2: I will only know them from the narratives that you
11:48
Speaker 2: tell me because I won't have first ten experience. I
11:51
Speaker 2: welcome it. I push you in that direction, and here
11:54
Speaker 2: are some strategies that have helped you along the way.
11:57
Speaker 2: But I'm not going to hold your hands. So all
11:59
Speaker 2: of that is in them from just the idea of
12:01
Speaker 2: having a less adversarial relationship with profanity and more of
12:07
Speaker 2: here's just one more domain where you can be really
12:09
Speaker 2: personalize your stamp on the world.
12:12
Speaker 3: I'm going to make sure that my daughter listens to
12:13
Speaker 3: this conversation because I and you know what else it
12:16
Speaker 3: does on top of those, I think you mentioned three things,
12:19
Speaker 3: maybe it was four. I lost count. It also makes
12:22
Speaker 3: you child more fun. Yeah, it's they're kind of they're
12:27
Speaker 3: insubordinating the common language as well as the course or
12:32
Speaker 3: profane language by creating their own language, which makes them
12:34
Speaker 3: a more fun person, which ties in with that creative
12:37
Speaker 3: piece that you were talking about. I love it.
12:40
Speaker 2: You know what made me realize that is, you know,
12:42
Speaker 2: I've done a lot of international travel before before COVID hit,
12:46
Speaker 2: and you go to the countries and they just have
12:49
Speaker 2: different terms of that are basically the profane terms. And
12:53
Speaker 2: you know, what's profane in the UK and what's profane
12:55
Speaker 2: in Sri Lanka are foreign entities in the United States,
12:59
Speaker 2: And you realize there's so much you could do with language,
13:02
Speaker 2: and it's so cheapens the extreme emotions that we feel,
13:08
Speaker 2: you know, the high highs of like love and pleasure,
13:11
Speaker 2: and as you're saying fun being around your you know,
13:13
Speaker 2: your core characters in your life, and then being having
13:16
Speaker 2: adversaries and even a nemesis that's in your life, and
13:21
Speaker 2: you can't describe that with just saying I'm angry. It's
13:24
Speaker 2: it's a deeper emotion. You are defined by your nemeses,
13:27
Speaker 2: and your kids will have nemeses, and so to be
13:30
Speaker 2: able to be creative and describe them as like, you know,
13:33
Speaker 2: Dante's Last you know, you know, least stage of Hell
13:36
Speaker 2: is a much more creative approach. It's like it's deep
13:39
Speaker 2: and it's traumatic, and it's intellectual. It's like you said,
13:43
Speaker 2: it's interesting and it's fun. And then other people are like, okay,
13:46
Speaker 2: so what's if that's level seven of Dante's Inferno? What's
13:50
Speaker 2: level six and five? And all of a sudden, you
13:52
Speaker 2: got yourself a much more interesting conversation as opposed to, Yeah,
13:56
Speaker 2: that kid is annoying.
13:57
Speaker 3: And now I've got to go and raid Dante to
13:59
Speaker 3: my kids. Thanks for the thanks all inspiration. Let's come
14:03
Speaker 3: back to the insubordination idea, which which is at the
14:07
Speaker 3: core of your book. We've talked about values, We've talked
14:09
Speaker 3: about this, competence and likability. This interview can't go ahead
14:14
Speaker 3: until I bring up one thing that you talked about
14:17
Speaker 3: in the book that completely blew my mind. I'm just
14:20
Speaker 3: going to use two words, and I want you to
14:22
Speaker 3: take this wherever you want, because we are talking about insubordination,
14:25
Speaker 3: and it's got to come back to kids eventually. But
14:27
Speaker 3: free throws, basketball, free throws? Can you just do something
14:31
Speaker 3: with that?
14:32
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, I mean right now, basketball is slowly working
14:36
Speaker 2: its way up to be one of the most popular
14:38
Speaker 2: sports Indrewn Ashley ahead, you know, right up there with
14:41
Speaker 2: you know, European soccer. And the idea of the free
14:45
Speaker 2: throw is you you were fouled, and so there was
14:50
Speaker 2: basically a violation of the rules of the game and
14:52
Speaker 2: you as a result, you get to be at this
14:55
Speaker 2: line fifteen feet away from a basket where you're going
14:58
Speaker 2: to throw the ball into and one else is still
15:03
Speaker 2: your team and the other team nobody's allowed to move.
15:05
Speaker 2: So when you even bounce the ball as you're waiting
15:08
Speaker 2: to shoot that ball fifteen feet away from the basket,
15:11
Speaker 2: it is dead silence. This is a terrifying experience. Many
15:15
Speaker 2: basketball players in the professional leagues who are making millions
15:18
Speaker 2: of dollars, barely get over fifty percent of their shots
15:22
Speaker 2: in in terms at the free throw line. There's something
15:25
Speaker 2: about the the trepidation of having all eyes at least
15:29
Speaker 2: perception wise on you and the entire game on a
15:34
Speaker 2: team sport, but for this moment, for this potential point,
15:37
Speaker 2: everything hinges on your shoulders and a lot of people
15:40
Speaker 2: can't handle this pressure. So a strategy. There are two
15:45
Speaker 2: ways of throwing a free throw. One one way of
15:47
Speaker 2: throwing it which little kids three, four, five, six years
15:52
Speaker 2: of age will do, which they take the ball and
15:55
Speaker 2: they rocket between their legs and they throw it underhand
15:57
Speaker 2: to get to the basket.
15:59
Speaker 3: That'd be a Grennie shot. That's how I'd call.
16:01
Speaker 2: That the Grannie shot. Yeah. So this is if you
16:04
Speaker 2: watch kids first pick up a basketball and you point
16:08
Speaker 2: to a hoop that's higher than them and say, get
16:10
Speaker 2: that ball on there. They don't do it overhand. They
16:14
Speaker 2: take the ball and they're in their two hands and
16:17
Speaker 2: they rock it back and forth and throw it as
16:19
Speaker 2: high as they can. And there's a reason that they
16:22
Speaker 2: do this, That kids pick this up naturally, it's because
16:25
Speaker 2: it is the most fluid efficient motion physics wise anatomically
16:30
Speaker 2: wise to project the ball upward into the air. The
16:35
Speaker 2: other way of throwing a ball is what you would
16:37
Speaker 2: see if you watch high school basketball games, college basketball games,
16:40
Speaker 2: or professional basketball games, which is this very complicated set
16:44
Speaker 2: of maneuvers where one hand, both of your arms are
16:49
Speaker 2: bent at the elbow around your chest level. One of
16:53
Speaker 2: your hands is holding the ball and that hand is
16:56
Speaker 2: going to project the ball forward towards the basketball. The
17:00
Speaker 2: other hand slightly holds the edge of the ball as
17:04
Speaker 2: a stabilizer, and both of those hands are going to
17:07
Speaker 2: push forward, but only one hand is going to push
17:11
Speaker 2: that ball at hopefully around a forty degree angle to
17:15
Speaker 2: get to the basketball.
17:16
Speaker 3: Hoop with You've got to put backspin on it, don't you.
17:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you want if you could, you preferably with your hand,
17:24
Speaker 2: have a little bit of a shift in your hands
17:26
Speaker 2: so it turns. So it's going to turn backwards when
17:30
Speaker 2: it hits the rim, and so it'll slow its speed,
17:33
Speaker 2: bounce off the rim or the backboard, and have multiple
17:36
Speaker 2: possibilities to get into the hoop if you don't get
17:39
Speaker 2: a swish or it perfectly goes through the hoop. Now,
17:43
Speaker 2: the interesting thing about the free throws is everybody does
17:47
Speaker 2: it the hard way. Two hands, one stabilizer, one one
17:52
Speaker 2: one arm is propulsion, one arm is stabilizing. Everybody uses
17:57
Speaker 2: this right now. There is two basketball players in all
18:05
Speaker 2: colleges around the United States and all professional leagues, there
18:09
Speaker 2: are two players that will throw it underhand, so it's
18:13
Speaker 2: not even ninety nine point nine to nine percent, it
18:16
Speaker 2: just goes those nine just go forever. It's basically two
18:19
Speaker 2: human beings are willing to throw underhand, and the reason
18:24
Speaker 2: is because this is looks so amazing. These athletes are
18:28
Speaker 2: being paid astronomical amounts of money for one reason, only
18:33
Speaker 2: win games, so we can win money as our franchise.
18:38
Speaker 2: But the fear of looking foolish, the embarrassment of being
18:43
Speaker 2: a little like a little to act like a little
18:45
Speaker 2: kid and slowly rock the ball between your legs has
18:49
Speaker 2: become so normative as something that's scornful, resentful, embarrassing, humiliating,
18:56
Speaker 2: and for lack of a better word, non mask that
19:00
Speaker 2: nobody's willing to do this, and professional players will say
19:03
Speaker 2: this in interviews repeatedly, which says, I would never I
19:08
Speaker 2: would rather stop playing basketball than throw the ball underhand
19:12
Speaker 2: as a granted shot. And if grown adults who are
19:16
Speaker 2: the most physically some of the most physically fit specimens
19:19
Speaker 2: of humans on the earth, who are paid millions, are
19:23
Speaker 2: unwilling to throw the better way that's more accurate and
19:27
Speaker 2: more reliable, that will make them more money and have
19:30
Speaker 2: their team win more games, they're unwilling to do this
19:34
Speaker 2: because they're embarrassed of deviating from the norm. What does
19:38
Speaker 2: that say about society in terms of being able to
19:42
Speaker 2: think for yourself and question and be skeptical about popular
19:46
Speaker 2: sentiments in the culture.
19:48
Speaker 3: What ago you're on? Why can you just I can't
19:50
Speaker 3: remember exactly the stat but you mentioned in the book
19:54
Speaker 3: a basketball player who does or did I think he's
19:57
Speaker 3: retired now, he did play with an underhand free throw
20:02
Speaker 3: and Rick Barry, Yeah, that's right. And what was his
20:05
Speaker 3: what was his percentage of hits?
20:08
Speaker 2: Ninety four percent of his shots would go in over
20:11
Speaker 2: the course of his career.
20:12
Speaker 3: And you're saying that the majority don't even hit fifty percent.
20:17
Speaker 2: Well, I was, I was probably being a little unfortunately hyperbolic.
20:19
Speaker 2: So it's around the average percent at the at the
20:23
Speaker 2: professional level is around seventy six percent, and the average
20:27
Speaker 2: percentage of getting in a free throw at the college
20:30
Speaker 2: level is under seventy percent.
20:32
Speaker 3: Okay, So we told hi, you're about a twenty to
20:34
Speaker 3: twenty five percent improvement by doing something that is insubordinate.
20:40
Speaker 2: Right and just, and just for those of for those
20:43
Speaker 2: people listing that aren't basketball fans, most games are won
20:47
Speaker 2: with by less than ten points. So you're talking about
20:51
Speaker 2: giving away potentially twenty points per game. If if one
20:57
Speaker 2: team kept throwing overhand and one team through granias, that's
21:01
Speaker 2: a twenty point differential all else being equal.
21:05
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's the that's of phenomenal. It's an incredible story,
21:10
Speaker 3: and it's a long while, but I think the story
21:11
Speaker 3: is worth it. But it's a long way to get
21:13
Speaker 3: to this point, and that is, how do we teach
21:15
Speaker 3: your kids to not be afraid to throw on the
21:18
Speaker 3: hand metaphorically speaking, Yeah, no.
21:21
Speaker 2: I'm glad. I'm glad you took it to this place.
21:25
Speaker 2: Essentially is we want to be training everyone. I mean,
21:29
Speaker 2: kids are just you know, they're not They're not small
21:31
Speaker 2: adults because it's not like the job of kids is
21:33
Speaker 2: to become big adults. The job of kids is just
21:36
Speaker 2: to live a good life and learn and grow just
21:39
Speaker 2: like adults. We want to be teaching about functionality. I mean,
21:43
Speaker 2: we want to be teaching about to live by your
21:47
Speaker 2: principles and losing by your losing while you stick to
21:52
Speaker 2: your principles is better than winning by taking the shortcuts.
21:56
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what this is about. When you're when
21:58
Speaker 2: you're choosing a dysfunctional social norm. That's that's we know statistically,
22:05
Speaker 2: we know by science, we know just by a proof
22:07
Speaker 2: of concept of watching people do it, that something is
22:11
Speaker 2: easier and the harder way is acceptable because it looks cool.
22:15
Speaker 2: We're moving away from function, We're moving away from we're
22:18
Speaker 2: moving away from principles. We are allowing social acceptability to
22:23
Speaker 2: override everything that every metric that's important to the domain
22:28
Speaker 2: that you're focusing on. So take I mean, if you know,
22:30
Speaker 2: you take it into reading. There's there are some books
22:34
Speaker 2: that are going to be more popular and look cooler
22:38
Speaker 2: in the presence of other kids, and other books will
22:42
Speaker 2: be you know, deemed as inferior or you know, just
22:47
Speaker 2: you know, undesirable. I mean, just think of this for
22:50
Speaker 2: an example. There are so many books that are deemed
22:54
Speaker 2: under These books are what girls read, and these books
22:56
Speaker 2: are what guys. So if you think, you know, if
22:59
Speaker 2: you think about high school, just think about Jane Eyre.
23:02
Speaker 2: You know, the idea of a guy reading Jane Eyre
23:04
Speaker 2: as they're sitting on a grassy knoll on a you know,
23:07
Speaker 2: on a college campus. Your first your first inference is one,
23:13
Speaker 2: are they are they in meeting mode, and they're trying
23:15
Speaker 2: to attract other people in terms of like, because one
23:18
Speaker 2: strategy to attract a mate is to is to show
23:22
Speaker 2: that you are open mind to reading books that are
23:25
Speaker 2: atypical for you know, for for a man to read
23:28
Speaker 2: and for a woman, you know, to read a book
23:30
Speaker 2: that's kind of that's a contrary to the norm of
23:32
Speaker 2: what a woman should read. So just to keep to
23:35
Speaker 2: keep it stereotypical. A woman reading a book about, you know,
23:39
Speaker 2: mechanical engineering, a guy reading a book on you know,
23:42
Speaker 2: written by Jane Eyre. You're talking about stereotypical, stereotype, non
23:48
Speaker 2: conforming behavior. People are skeptical about whether they actually like
23:52
Speaker 2: what they're reading or they're trying to, you know, present
23:55
Speaker 2: themselves as someone that's nonconformist. I would say is that
24:00
Speaker 2: when we see people that act in counter stereotypical ways,
24:06
Speaker 2: how we frame those moments is going to create an
24:10
Speaker 2: image for our children of how they can behave and
24:14
Speaker 2: deviate from social norms. So every time that you see
24:18
Speaker 2: someone that dresses in an unusual way and it looks
24:21
Speaker 2: like they're enjoying themselves, dancing by themselves with their headphones
24:25
Speaker 2: on on the street while everybody looks at them. Funny
24:28
Speaker 2: what you should be doing in those moments and laugh,
24:31
Speaker 2: enjoy the moment. I mean the these are unusual moments.
24:33
Speaker 2: You see somebody on a Unice criticle and they're dancing
24:36
Speaker 2: and they're singing, you know, abba songs from the nineteen
24:39
Speaker 2: seventies while going down the street. It's an unusual scenario.
24:43
Speaker 2: I would point to my kids and say, listen, that
24:46
Speaker 2: guy is that is That's what courage looks like. It's
24:50
Speaker 2: this authentic stamp of how he's living his life. And
24:54
Speaker 2: there's something really beautiful about completely relentless desires and passionate
25:01
Speaker 2: that you're willing to pursue despite the public stairits.
25:07
Speaker 3: Todd I reckon. We could talk for days about this.
25:09
Speaker 3: You've got an entire chapter about encouraging principled rebellion in
25:13
Speaker 3: kids in the book The Art of Insubordination, and I
25:18
Speaker 3: loved reading that chapter. I thought that the way you
25:20
Speaker 3: brought the science into it but also made it made
25:24
Speaker 3: it so accessible, it was just really really worth worth investigating.
25:28
Speaker 3: Before we wrap up, there's a question that's been on
25:30
Speaker 3: my mind quite a lot in the last couple of years.
25:32
Speaker 3: In Australia, we've had a lot of big. In fact, globally,
25:35
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of really big conversations about masculinity.
25:39
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking about insubordination in relation to raising boys
25:44
Speaker 3: who are willing to question the masculine, the dominant masculine
25:50
Speaker 3: narrative that exists, and that is, unfortunately, in some places
25:55
Speaker 3: toxic to use the term, because because there is this
25:58
Speaker 3: idea out there, right, boys are supposed to be big
26:00
Speaker 3: and strong, They're supposed to keep their emotions in check.
26:04
Speaker 3: They're supposed to be on this sexual conquest all the time.
26:08
Speaker 3: They're allowed to, they're allowed to be angry, but not
26:11
Speaker 3: much else. There is this sort of I've got a
26:14
Speaker 3: book on my shelf right behind me here by a
26:16
Speaker 3: Harvard research called Bill Pollock, called Real Boys, and he
26:18
Speaker 3: talks about all the different ways that this masculinity narrative
26:21
Speaker 3: plays out. How would we teach our kids to become
26:27
Speaker 3: insubordinate in the face of what is really a society
26:31
Speaker 3: wide expectation and still managed to hold the head high, right,
26:36
Speaker 3: I mean there's so much pressure to conform to the norm.
26:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you just asked an hour and a
26:42
Speaker 2: half conversation question, Yeah.
26:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, in ninety seconds or less please, I.
26:48
Speaker 2: Mean, I mean, so my immediate response when people talk
26:52
Speaker 2: about toxic masculinity is twofold. One is, something you said,
26:58
Speaker 2: which I think is important, is we had outdated scripts
27:02
Speaker 2: about how boys are supposed to behave and how girls
27:04
Speaker 2: are supposed to be I mean, there's no question about that,
27:07
Speaker 2: and I think you captured it very nicely, so it's
27:08
Speaker 2: no reason for me to repeat it. The second one
27:11
Speaker 2: is we have to allow variety in individual differences in
27:15
Speaker 2: people's behavior. So anytime that we're talking about an entire
27:20
Speaker 2: species all boys, all men, all girls, all women under
27:25
Speaker 2: one monolithic entity, we're whatever we say about for describing that,
27:30
Speaker 2: we're immediately moving into bovels. I mean, there's a reason
27:34
Speaker 2: that boys tend to act in a particular way that
27:37
Speaker 2: on average, is different than girls. You could think about
27:40
Speaker 2: it from a list of evolutionary motives that god behavior.
27:46
Speaker 2: So let me just kind of humor you with a
27:49
Speaker 2: few of them. Avoid toxins, so that could be you know,
27:53
Speaker 2: particular foods, particular animals, anything that's going to kind of
27:56
Speaker 2: given a sense of disease. Avoid enemy. So you're going
28:00
Speaker 2: to know there are people that are predictable, characters that
28:03
Speaker 2: are going to be dangerous and likely to violate you
28:06
Speaker 2: and be physically dangerous to be around. Make friends, find
28:10
Speaker 2: romantic partners, maintain relationships romantic partners. Develop a strong sense
28:16
Speaker 2: of identity so that you're not pulled by the whims
28:19
Speaker 2: the whimsical ideas and preferences of other people. Have a
28:23
Speaker 2: focus on generativity, where you're considering not you're just yourself,
28:26
Speaker 2: but pro socially thinking about other people and developing a
28:33
Speaker 2: sense of physical care for you. So in terms of
28:36
Speaker 2: your physical health, you're being agile, strong sense of endurance
28:40
Speaker 2: that happens there. So you have a mating mindset, you
28:44
Speaker 2: have a physical health mindset, you have a friend finding mindset,
28:48
Speaker 2: you have avoid disease and toxin's mindset. We behave differently
28:54
Speaker 2: depending on which one of those modes is activated by
28:57
Speaker 2: the situation. So some of of things that we regard
29:01
Speaker 2: as problematic as masculinity are actually perfectly appropriate for the
29:05
Speaker 2: task at hand. So if you're talking about dealing with danger, toxin,
29:09
Speaker 2: disease and enemies, in this case, is perfectly okay to
29:13
Speaker 2: assert yourself and show the dominant side of your personality
29:18
Speaker 2: and even be contenters in situations. Now, in terms of
29:22
Speaker 2: finding friends, maintaining friendships, finding mats, maintaining mates. In this
29:27
Speaker 2: situation is where we want to worried outdated scripts. Like
29:31
Speaker 2: you said, hunters and hunted, and the idea is we
29:35
Speaker 2: want we want boys to realize is that the way
29:40
Speaker 2: that you're going to be socially attracted to other people
29:43
Speaker 2: is not going to be hunting people and treating them
29:46
Speaker 2: as a means to an end, but as an end
29:48
Speaker 2: to themselves. And so the idea of keeping your head
29:51
Speaker 2: high is to realize that you do not have this
29:54
Speaker 2: stable set of personality characteristics. You have a particular person
30:00
Speaker 2: that's activated by situations. So the way to actually work
30:04
Speaker 2: with boys is not to kind of undo hundreds of
30:10
Speaker 2: years of society, but to think of in which area
30:14
Speaker 2: are you seeing behavior that's not workable at getting getting
30:18
Speaker 2: the goals that they want. So it's easy to tweak about, Hey, listen,
30:22
Speaker 2: you're really funny, you're extremely witty in terms of talking
30:25
Speaker 2: to other people, but you're horrible at listening and you
30:29
Speaker 2: ask very few questions. Add this to your repertoire. You're
30:34
Speaker 2: going to make more friends and you're going to find
30:36
Speaker 2: that whatever mats you're looking for, people are going to
30:38
Speaker 2: be more attracted towards you. So now we've modified specific
30:41
Speaker 2: behaviors as opposed to saying we're trying to remove elements
30:46
Speaker 2: of masculinity. And I think that's going to be a
30:49
Speaker 2: more useful strategy of thinking about trying to change masculinity,
30:53
Speaker 2: which is so overwhelming that there's almost nothing you can
30:56
Speaker 2: do with that.
30:58
Speaker 3: What I love about that as well is number one direct,
31:01
Speaker 3: which works really well for guys, right. I mean, sometimes
31:03
Speaker 3: we need to be hit right between the eyes with
31:06
Speaker 3: good advice, and that what you just said there is
31:08
Speaker 3: so direct, And secondly, it's so specific, it's so concrete.
31:15
Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, yeah, I can do that, as opposed to,
31:18
Speaker 3: as you said, this nebulous, enormous, impossible change that I'm
31:22
Speaker 3: supposed to change the very nature of myself and the
31:25
Speaker 3: way society sees me so that I can conform to
31:27
Speaker 3: a new norm. And I mean, we are moving in
31:29
Speaker 3: an increasingly positive direction in some segments of our society,
31:33
Speaker 3: but there's so much room to move. And I get
31:35
Speaker 3: the sense that if we can give that personalized help
31:39
Speaker 3: to our boys in particular, it could make a difference. Todd,
31:45
Speaker 3: I reckon, there's been just so helpful for so many parents.
31:49
Speaker 3: I really wish we could keep on going, but I
31:51
Speaker 3: need to honor your time. You've been more than generous already,
31:53
Speaker 3: and we have gone over time. Thanks for joining me
31:57
Speaker 3: in this conversation today.
32:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, you ask amazing questions. So I am happy to
32:03
Speaker 2: have three hour conversations anytime anyway. And I am glad
32:07
Speaker 2: that there are resources now where more information is coming
32:10
Speaker 2: in as parents, because all of us want the manual
32:14
Speaker 2: and none of us got the manual.
32:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, one of those resources I reckon should be
32:17
Speaker 3: Todd Kashton's book, The Art of Insubordination. It's got a
32:21
Speaker 3: whole lot more in the subtitle, but that's all you
32:22
Speaker 3: need to google. Todd Kashton Art of Insubordination. Great book,
32:25
Speaker 3: and and a wonderful chapter on pairenting right at the end.
32:27
Speaker 3: But it's just a fascinating book. Generally. The Happy Families podcast,
32:31
Speaker 3: as always, is produced by Justin Ruland for Bridge Media.
32:33
Speaker 3: Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if you like
32:35
Speaker 3: more info about making your family happier, you can visit
32:39
Speaker 3: Happyfamilies dot com dot a u